The Silent Vulcan

by James Follett

  "Wonder what it says?" Harding mused.

  "That's what I wondered," said Blackwood. "Why not take a look?" With that the big farmer dragged aside a large section of the chain-link that had been cut through. "Got busy with the croppers soon as I saw the sign. Sorry -- but that was before Government House told me not to touch anything."

  Harding and Weir ducked through the opening. They read the sign in silence, each wrapped in his own thoughts. The corners of the board were marked with vivid lightning flashes above a skull and cross-bones. Harding raised his camera and clicked the shutter. The actual sign was curt and to the point. It said little yet spoke volumes:

  DANGER EXTREMELY HIGH VOLTAGE

  ATTEMPTS TO BREACH THIS FENCE WILL

  RESULT IN DEATH

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

  Chapter 15.

  TONY SELBY, OF SELBY ENGINEERING, was extremely pissed off. He and four of his employees had better things to do than labour with billhooks in the midday sun, searching for what was supposed to be the equivalent of Cleopatra's Needle in a small haystack.

  He paused in his task of hacking at brambles and mopped his forehead. "Councillor Baldock," he said wearily. "You are one big dumb pillock. How the hell could you lose something as big as you say it was?"

  Dan Baldock was a waspish little pig farmer, much given to indignant bristling. He bristled indignantly at his old school friend's accusation. "It was nigh on thirty year ago, and I resent being called big. Anyway -- I don't use this field. Too small and too close to the town for my pigs. People don't appreciate honest smells no more."

  There was a yell from the lower corner of Baldock's Field where two of Selby's men were up to their chests in the midst of a huge bramble thicket. One of them waved.

  "Found it!"

  Selby's team walked down the slope to the thicket where his two employee's were gorging themselves on plump blackberries and looking very pleased with themselves. They used their billhooks to drag the brambles aside, exposing grey, lichen-mottled concrete.

  "That's it, all right," said Baldock morosely, scraping at the moss. He repeated his excuse about it being nigh on thirty years ago.

  The six men set to work with renewed vigour. Thirty minutes sweated labour, hacking at the thick suckers and dragging them clear using industrial gloves, was enough to expose a huge slab of concrete. It measured about 10 metres square and stood a third of a metre high. They gathered in the centre of the slab and contemplated the conical concrete obelisk-like structure that protruded from the slab's exact centre. It was about a metre high and the same in diameter at its base.

  "That's the cap," said Baldock.

  "I guessed," said Selby sourly, eyeing the squat obelisk with distaste. He needed tools and sent a man up the hill to the field's entrance to fetch their pony and cart.

  Baldock produced a yellowing newspaper cutting that bore a photograph of a gang of men in Conoco overalls and hard hats. They were standing at the foot of a robust tower-like derrick. The caption said: `Conoco Drilling Team's Lucky Strike.' Underneath was a sub-headline: `Significant natural gas find say experts'.

  In fact there was little luck in the find. In the early 1980s, after weeks of painstaking surveys, Conoco had drilled a series of exploratory test bores across Southern England. The purpose of the exercise was not so much to set up production, but to assess the United Kingdom's resources of mainland natural gas and oil. When finished, the derricks were dismantled, the test bores were capped, and Conoco went back to more lucrative exploration contracts in Alaska and the Far East.

  "Funny," said Baldock, studying the tree line in the photograph's background, "but I could've sworn that this thing was at top of the field -- not down here." "Age and senility creeping up on you, Dan," was Selby's unkind retort as he selected a sharp bolster and a club hammer from the toolbox that had been dumped beside him.

  With sharp taps of the heavy hammer on the bolster, he quickly scored a vertical line down the obelisk in the hope that it would act as a fault line that would fracture easily and simplify the task of breaking the concrete away from whatever was underneath. But Conoco's engineers had done their job well by adding a fibrous binder to the concrete's mix necessitating progressively harder blows to weaken it.

  "They certainly didn't want it tampered with, did they?" Selby commented.

  They took it in turns with the bolster and club hammer. Gradually a huge valve, protected with several layers of hessian like a mummy, was revealed. It required treating with respect, using smaller tools to completely expose it. After that the rest of the concrete came away easily in large chunks.

  At the end of an hour's work they brewed tea using a portable solar heater and contemplated their handiwork. In the centre of the rubble and chippings stood a massively-proportioned device that looked like a large fire hydrant. The shut-off valve at the top of the heavy casting consisted of a recessed hexagon drive. At the side was a large threaded male outlet protected with a screw-on plastic cap. Selby removed the cap, checked the thread's pitch and profile with a set of gauges, and measured its diameter.

  "75 mill," he announced with some satisfaction. "Should be a doddle."

  He treated the recessed drive with penetrating oil and left it to soak in while he rummaged in an old ammunition box. He had come well-prepared; the box was filled with an assortment of pipe couplings, adapters, and even pressure gauges. It took him only a few minutes to screw an adaptor onto the valve and add a series of reducers that terminated with a pressure gauge. He carefully tightened the assembly with spanners. The gauge reading would give no indication of the size of the gas field that they were sitting on, but the pressure would give a good idea of what they would have to handle. They didn't even know what the gas was. Baldock's newspaper cutting didn't say, council minutes covering the period had been destroyed in the fire, and none of the locals who had provided casual labour for Conoco could recall.

  Let it be methane, Selby prayed as he searched for a socket wrench that fitted the valve's drive. He needed the biggest socket in the set.

  Selby Engineering had learned a great deal about the characteristics of methane gas that was produced from Pentworth's House piggery digestors. Although Adrian Roscoe's monopoly on the gas was being eroded by the increasing number of digestors that were being built on farms as a means of extracting useful energy from slurry, but their output, valuable as it was, was nothing compared with prodigious quantities that Roscoe's 5000 pigs could produce. Several buses and other public service vehicles had been converted by Selby's company to run on the stuff as a means of conserving Pentworth's irreplaceable stock of polluting petrol and diesel oil. Methane was a valuable hydro-carbon fuel, a greenhouse gas in its free state, but which burned without producing excessive pollutants. It was also valuable in the manufacture of ammonia that was needed by the new ice-making plant. But not enough methane was being produced. What was needed was a major find which would end Adrian Roscoe's powerful political and economic hold over Pentworth that he had already shown he was prepared to use.

  "Right. Everyone off," Selby ordered. "Take yourselves and the pony and cart at least 200 metres away."

  "What are you expecting?" Baldock demanded.

  "I've no bloody idea."

  "Supposing it does blow-up, Mr Selby?" inquired an employee.

  Selby grinned and glanced up at the sky. The clouds that formed at night and provided Pentworth with regular rainfall, had virtually dispersed. "You'll need a hot air balloon to scrape me off the inside of the Wall. Now piss off."

  Once they were a safe distance away, Selby tapped the socket into place on the valve and inserted a tommy bar. He kept an eye on the pressure gauge and applied a gentle force to the tommy bar. He didn't expect the valve to budge, and it didn't. Nor did gentle thumps with the heel of his palm have any effect. A judicious tap with a hide mallet was the same. He slid a length of steel tube onto the tommy bar to increase the leverage and went through the process again. It crossed his mind that
maybe Conoco well cap valves had lefthand threads. Shearing the hexagon off its spindle would be a disaster.

  A slightly harder blow with the mallet resulted in the valve giving a fraction. Either that or the tube was bending. The needle remained on the stop. Another blow and the valve gave about a degree but the results were out of all proportion to the tiny amount of movement. The needle whipped around to the stop with an audible clunk, and the pressure gauge exploded with a deafening report, spraying the field with glass and fragments of metal. Gas blasted through the remains of the pressure gauge. Although shaken, Selby had the presence of mind to pull on an industrial glove and deflect some of escaping gas upwards with his hand. The searing cold of the expanding gas stabbed through the glove's thick leather. It attacked the atmosphere's 80 per cent relative humidity and created a cloud of swirling fog. He bent over the valve and sniffed cautiously before closing it.

  There was no odour.

  Methane! It could only be methane! Glorious, wonderful methane!

  The others came running in response to his gesture of triumph.

  "Methane," said Selby in answer to their questions. "And I've no idea how much. But a lot, I reckon. It blew that fifty atmosphere pressure gauge to glory. And Adrian Roscoe's monopoly."

  "What's fifty atmospheres in old money?" Baldock demanded.

  Selby laughed delightedly. "Seven hundred and fifty pounds per square inch -- probably a lot higher if the speed at which it took the gauge out is anything to go by."

  The team celebrated their momentous discovery with more tea. None of them could have guessed that the far-reaching consequences of their find would result in Pentworth taking the first steps towards a civil war.

  Chapter 16.

  MIKE MALONE WAS NOT one to allow his behaviour indicate his moods, but there was no mistaking his feelings as he strode into the operations room in Pentworth police station, stuck his feet on a desk, and loosened his tie. WPC Carol Sandiman poured a cup of tea from a vacuum flask and placed the police station's last biscuit in the saucer. "It went badly?" she inquired, placing the tea before Malone.

  "Magistrates' courts," he said bitterly. "There ought to be a law that gives police officers the right to shoot one magistrate before they retire."

  Carol smiled. She admired Mike Malone and had mentally awarded him a 10 on the F scale when she had first met him. "A great idea," she said. "Trouble is I'd probably abuse it and take out at least three. Just how badly did it go?"

  "Hasn't it been on the radio yet?"

  "Not yet."

  "The charges relating to food distribution were dismissed. He produced evidence showing that the beef in the hamburgers were allowances that his bloody sentinels had donated. The bread rolls were rejects from his bakery. The hamburgers were given away free of charge on private property therefore the beneficiaries of his largess were his guests."

  "Any good news?"

  Malone sipped his tea, his expression morose. "Faraday's got a plaster cast on his right arm the size of a marrow. He's not a happy man."

  Carol smiled.

  "A 2000 euro fine each for resisting arrest," Malone continued. "Police objections to bail for assault and incitement refused. Bail conditions were that his preaching activities must be confined to the inside Pentworth House or any privately owned building. Which reminds me. Roscoe's not going to be happy about the methane find when the news is released. I want you to organize a three-man 24/7 guard roster on the well head please. It's being fenced but I'd feel happier knowing that we're keeping a permanent watch on the thing."

  The policewoman frowned. She turned to the wall map and found Baldock's Field that was near the southern end of the High Street. "Three men round the clock is stretching us," she observed. "How about two men? Armed?"

  Malone hesitated and decided that the suggestion made sense. He nodded. "Okay, Carol. Make sure they can handle shotguns."

  "That won't be difficult with our local yokel force." Carol's phone rang. She answered it, listened, and called out to Malone. "Mrs Anne Taylor is here, sir. She'd like to see you."

  Malone drained the teacup. He had been expecting the visit. "Okay -- I'll see her in the interview room."

  "Would you like me present?"

  "No -- I'm sure Mrs Taylor can be trusted to restrain herself."

  Anne Taylor was shown into the interview room. She was in her mid-30s and bore a striking resemblance to her daughter. The same green eyes as Vikki -- now lined and lustreless from worry and lack of sleep -- the same golden hair. On a happier occasion, at the May Day carnival, Anne Taylor had told Malone that she was a little tired of being thought of as Vikki's older sister. The police officer knew that Anne's husband was Farside and that her enforced estrangement from him because of the Wall was no great hardship because their marriage was on the point of breaking up anyway.

  Malone smiled reassuringly at his guest. "I saw you in court just now, Anne. I confess I was a little worried in case you were going to buttonhole me outside which was why I cleared off quickly. I didn't mean to appear rude."

  The green eyes regarded Malone steadily. "You told me not contact you in public, Mike."

  "And you've been very good."

  "But I had to go to court. I wanted to see Roscoe imprisoned."

  "Which makes two of us."

  "It's been nearly a month now."

  "You don't have to remind me."

  "Well I think I do," Anne replied with a flash of anger that she immediately regretted. "Oh hell... Mike -- I hate having to say this because it must make me seem ungrateful. I can never thank you enough for rescuing Vikki, but I know my daughter. Wherever it is you've got her hidden, after all this time I worry about her mental state."

  "Would you believe me if I said that the mental state of all three women is uppermost in my mind?"

  Anne met Malone's gaze and looked down at her hands. She nodded. "You must think I'm so ungrateful."

  "I think you're a good mother who's naturally concerned about her daughter. Believe me, Anne, I'm going to break Adrian Roscoe and his cult. It's my number one priority, but until I do so, Vikki and Ellen, and Claire Lake must remain in hiding. That they have to do so, I regard as a failure on my part. And I hate failure."

  Anne looked at the police officer with renewed hope. "Do you have a plan... I'm sorry, Mike -- don't answer that -- a stupid question."

  Malone came out from behind the desk and sat in a chair beside Anne. He took her hand and smiled encouraging. "Actually, Anne, I've about ten plans. My concern is to choose the one that'll work with a single blow. That fiasco in the magistrates' court just now was a result of events beyond my control."

  "But Vikki's well?"

  "Yes." It was a white lie. Knowing that Roscoe had his watchers and informers everywhere, Malone and David Weir had deliberately avoided making contact with the three fugitives. "Anne -- the August Market Square carnival is coming up. I'd be pleased if you'd do me the honours again."

  Anne stiffened and pulled her hand away. "Do you really think I could go gallivanting while Vikki's in danger?"

  "She's not in danger where she is and I don't want you to do any gallivanting," said Malone seriously. "Just indulge in some wild dancing in that little white dress you wore at the May Day do. I'm pretty sure Vikki would approve. I know I would."

  Anne's first reaction was snap Malone's head off but, when she met those wide-set brown eyes, she realised that she couldn't get angry with this man.

  "And it'll do you a power of good," Malone added. "I daren't tell you what seeing you in that dress again would do to me. I might even misappropriate police methane to run you home in the wee small hours just to have those gorgeous legs beside me."

  "Why do I get the distinct impression that your intentions are not honorable?" Malone looked pained, put his hand on his heart and said, "I give you my solemn word as a police officer and a gentleman that they're not."

  Anne could not help smiling. She nodded. "I don't really feel up to social
ising but it's a date, Mr Malone."

  Malone stood. "Excellent. We'll firm up nearer the day."

  Anne rose. "I'll look forward to it, Mike, but I can't promise to be the life and soul. At least Roscoe's search parties seem to have stopped."

  "He's had enough warning shots across the bow," Malone replied.

  "No amount of warning shots are going to stop a mental case like Adrian Roscoe," said Anne emphatically. "Nothing short of a broadside and his being sunk without trace will achieve that."

  When he was alone, Malone thought about Anne's parting sentence. The worrying thing was that she was so damnably right.

  Chapter 17.

  BOB HARDING LOOKED QUICKLY in turn at each of the 10 councillors seated around the conference table. The meeting was being held on the ground floor of Government House in a room that sometimes served as a juvenile court. A large scale map of the area showing the Wall was spread out on the table. "Has everyone seen all the photographs?"

  There were nods of assent. Harding turned the laptop computer around to face him and called up the next picture he would be referring to.

  "I'm sorry not to have printed them out, but we need to be extremely careful with our stock of bubble jet ink. We can't expect Selby Engineering to make everything."

  "That's good news," said Tony Selby wryly. "I've been getting so depressed recently."

  There was a ripple of laughter around the table.

  "Firstly," said Harding briskly to the gathering. "Thank you for coming and I apologise for the short notice but there have been a number of recent events that need urgent consideration. I take it you've all read my somewhat terse report. Unless there are any objections, I'm suspending standing orders so that Mr Selby may give his advice if needed. Standing orders will be reimposed automatically during voting arising out of the agenda. Town Clerk -- you need only minute decisions."

  Diana Sheldon stopped making shorthand notes.

  "There's no `any other business' on the agenda, Mr Chairman," Millicent Vaughan observed.